Work Harder than Everyone Else and You’ll Raise $37 Million

I ducked into a coffee shop in NYC during a January snowfall in 2012. We were meeting with TechStars to interview for their spring cohort. (spoiler alert – we didn’t get in, but later got in the Boulder program).

But in that coffee shop, that’s where I met Moisey Uretsky. One of the top tech entrepreneurs in the game today. And a guy who just raised $37 million dollars to take on Amazon.

This is Jeff, Ben, & Moisey of DigitalOcean sucking up to Nicole Glaros with flowers! (Boulder Summer 2012)

The story of this post is tenacity, hard work, and predictability,

We both got rejected from NY but met again a few months later in March. Long story short, we both got in and got to work beside each other for the summer.

Ben popping Champagne for a user milestone in the TechStars kitchen

I loved watching DigitalOcean work…and thought from Day 1 that they were going to kill it. Moisey and Ben’s Team were one of the two hardest working companies at TechStars that summer. They were there 6 nights/week until 10/11pm. The other hard working team was Ubooly. I like to think SalesLoft was up there with them.

So…DigitalOcean and Ubooly we’re the two hardest working companies at TechStars. They are now the two most successful companies from the cohort.

I’m not surprised, are you?

An investor came to visit us once in Boulder. He was hanging around late night and told me: “here are the three companies I’d consider investing in” When I asked him why he stated:

“Because they’re here at midnight on a Friday!”

I believe in ROWE and work hard not to burn out, but at the end of the day, the hardest workers win….and have the most fun.